[Bug 8038] Permit closing tag for new, void elements - for legacy compatibility = XHTML alignment

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=8038


Ian 'Hixie' Hickson <ian@hixie.ch> changed:

           What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
             Status|NEW                         |RESOLVED
         Resolution|                            |WONTFIX




--- Comment #1 from Ian 'Hixie' Hickson <ian@hixie.ch>  2009-10-25 06:16:08 ---
EDITOR'S RESPONSE: This is an Editor's Response to your comment. If you are
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Status: Rejected
Change Description: no spec change
Rationale: Making the closing tag optional would be remarkably confusing. 

Consider:

   <foo>x</foo>

...in a UA where <foo> is void and where it isn't -- what does it contain?

It would also require additional hacks in the parser, to handle:

   <foo></foo>

...as ok but to raise errors for:

   </foo>
   <foo>x</foo>
   <foo<!-- --></foo>
   <foo><!x></foo>
   <foo>&amp;</foo>

...etc.

Also, in practice, the new void elements are not a problem: we haven't
introduced void elements that are affected by this in a major way. <source> is
only useful if <video>/<audio> work anyway, and if they don't, it doesn't
matter if the <source> contains the element's contents. <command> can trivially
be put inside a <div> with display:none, or at the bottom of a <menu>, or in an
<li> in a <menu>, so again, it doesn't really make much difference.

Thus it seems to me that overall, the language is best served by not adding
this extra complexity at this time.


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Received on Sunday, 25 October 2009 06:16:12 UTC